Kelowna

Kelowna businessman Mark Thompson announced Wednesday his intention to seek the nomination of the B.C. Liberal Party for the Kelowna-Mission constituency.

Thompson, a city councillor in Saskatoon for nine years, will be running against Steve Thomson, Maxine DeHart and Nicole Bullock.

“We desperately need elected MLAs that can find solutions to problems. I am fortunate to have received both the education and the experience to be an effective leader. I have been given the gift of actually knowing the issues by working with public policy for 20 years of my life, experiencing the political process. Should I be elected the MLA for Kelowna-Mission, I will be able to hit the ground running and do the job responsibly and effectively,” says Thompson.

He says he has a 10 point action plan to help guide his time in office if he’s elected.

“We need to be more honest, we are clearly in a global recession affecting us locally and the worst is likely yet to come. Many of our seniors have lost half their investment wealth. We have many development projects recently announcing grand plans and openings with great hype, now shutting down because they are no longer sustainable in these economic times of uncertain future returns on investments. This will result in job losses, which we cannot afford. We need to compensate for these losses with proper leadership and a solid economic plan to create new jobs.”

Thompson’s 10 point plan:

Jobs - creation, retention, sustainability and transition

Accessible public transit

Affordable senior’s housing

Kelowna’s rightful share of government infrastructure funds

Healthier families and communities

Improved health care delivery

Educational and innovation excellence

Safer supportive communities

Environmental stewardships

Removing the anti-customer monopolistic attitudes and policies from ICBC and Work Safe BC.